Let’s Meet the Honeybee!

July 9, 2014

We Love Honey Bees!

In order to understand any living organism we must look and see “who” this critter really is. The term taxonomy refers to the scientific study of classification. 18th century, Swedish naturalist, Carolus Linnaeus developed the classification system binomial nomenclature which is still practiced universally today. His taxonomic system uses two names to identify every organism, genus and species. For example, humans are known as Homo sapiens where Homo is our genus and sapiens is our species.

The honeybee is scientifically classified as Apis mellifera. The root of the word Apis is related to social insects or bees and mellifera is associated with a flower type yielding copious amounts of nectar (i.e. the beginning of honey). Let’s explore the taxonomy of the honeybee a bit more.

Order – Hymenoptera, translating to mean “membraned wings.” This order includes bees, ants, wasps, and sawflies (honeybees being the most fabulous of course).

Family – Apidae, Latin meaning “bee” (go figure).

Genus – Apis, also referring to “bee” (go figure again).

Species – Mellifera, relating to honey production.

So, by looking at the honeybee classification we now know that honey bees are animals with jointed legs, exoskeletons, segmented bodies, antennae, compound eyes, and a membrane-like set of wings. We also know that they are related to wasps and ants, they are social and associated with nectar and honey production. Isn’t taxonomy fantastic!

Wildflower honey is something that I believe everyone has probably seen, but most do not really understand. I am sure that they get the general concept but not the whole incredible wildflower honey picture. Everyone knows that it is honey, produced from the nectar, that the bees have gathered from multiple flower sources or varieties….

Years ago, Savannah Bee introduced our now best-selling Winter White honey. Winter White honey is a whipped or creamed honey variety. This means that we use a large mixer to whip air into the honey which changes the honey’s color and texture. It is 100% pure raw honey, white, smooth, spreadable and absolutely delicious! This honey…

Summertime is here, there’s no doubt about it. When it gets this hot outside, the last thing I want to do is spend my time in a scorching kitchen. So instead of toiling away this week to create a recipe that requires baking, I decided to take the easy road with a no-bake snack. Dried…